Why Change Management

The competitive landscape is becoming increasingly challenging. Ranging from emergence of new competitors, global marketplace, rising input costs leading to pressure on margins. Like you, many organizations are assessing their alignment of resources with increasing frequency.

Change management is the discipline of aligning an organization with its stakeholder interests to ensure its offerings to the market remain relevant. An effective change management engagement can have great impact, and its importance in ensuring continued success is intensifying.

When you need:

• To develop new skills
• Address a complex issue
• Deal with a sensitive Matter
• The objectivity of a third party
• Discipline of a formal process
• Effective leadership

What is Change Management

Let me begin with an anecdote: suprisingly, most of the gene sequences in our DNA represent failed attempts to adapt to our environment. Similarly, organizations are filled with the well intentioned solutions to problems that have become obsolete, in much the same way that laws remain on the books for ages. Organizations however lack the efficiency of DNA, and continue to operate outdated processes long after the process creator has moved on.

While many of these issues are best dealt with using internal resources, many others require intense focused projects that are both broad and deep: spanning departments, and requiring a complete reassessment of purpose and remit.

Furthermore, resistance to change is inevitable. Patterns of interaction serve many purposes and people are reluctant to let go of roles and positions of influence as they are being asked to relinquish a ‘known’ and exchange it for an ‘unknown’. To be fair, this seems completely reasonable. But it can make the process quite intractable.

So you can see by its very nature, change is best approached with an independent, objective third party that is not enmeshed in the tribal history of the organization: customs, legends, organizational debts owed and favors due can rapidly impede an internally led effort.

Change management can cover quite a broad range of approaches, and certain methods have favour according to accepted practices within an industry.  Today it is increasingly common to find a number of methods used concurrently (we do). Similarly, many of these techniques were originally developed with manufacturing in mind, and are being adapted for service businesses. Areas we draw on include:

Quality based approaches: The Total Quality Management approaches of Deming and Juran, and more recently the Six Sigma and Lean approaches

Demand based approaches: Sales training, Customer Relationship Management

Talent Development: coaching, mentoring training,

Times of change require an enormous investment of effort from the entire organization. Yet it is only demanding during the realignment process. It is similar to how an engine works: while on the motorway at 70, it only requires 15 horsepower. But accelerating up to that speed took 150. Which is why it makes great sense to hire that expertise in to accelerate the business.

We don’t presume to be heroes or magicians, and won’t be able to fix everything. For example, when we identify an issue, we’ll also assess the cost to the organization of improving it or leaving it as it is: sometimes that is what’s best.

What we can promise, is to be honest, open and direct. And have a tremendously positive impact on your team, culture and ROI.